 If you want to know how I'm using Audio Hijack in my productions, or if you are new to Audio Hijack and just want to know exactly what it is, then this video is for you. Hello, and welcome to Take One Tech. My name's Alec. Now I've had a few questions recently about Audio Hijack, which is a Mac application to process audio on your Mac. And I had a question about it privately through email, but then I also had it come up on a recent livestream that I did where somebody asked me to just walk through how I'm using Audio Hijack and Loopback. I'll cover Loopback in a separate video. That one's got a number of different use cases, but I thought today I would just share with you how I'm using Audio Hijack and give a bit of an introduction to the application, what it's used for, and as I say how I'm specifically using it. So I'll come over to my desktop, first of all. Audio Hijack is an application in simple terms that takes any audio source from your computer, either an external one plugged in, such as a microphone, or it could be an internal audio source, such as, for example, if you are watching a YouTube video in Safari, then the audio coming out of that would be classed as an audio source. The application then performs a number of different processes on that audio, so you could change the pitch of it, you could perform all sorts of other things that I'll talk to you about shortly. And then once it's processed the signal, it outputs it to an output device, so that might be a set of speakers, for example. So that's in essence what Audio Hijack does. It hijacks some audio, it processes that audio, and it puts it back out somewhere else. So it's anything that you want to do in terms of changing any audio on your Mac. Now I use it because I have a Shure MV7, and I have most of the sort of signal processing, if you like, is done using the Shure Motive app. Now I did a whole review on the Shure MV7 and on the Motive app as well, and explained in there how it allows me to apply compression, just the volume, the gain, things like that of the microphone, and so as I say that's all handled with that app. The one thing that it doesn't do is noise cancellation, and it is very good at blocking general sort of background noise. However, I am working on a rather old Mac, and so the fans are generally working overtime to keep it cool, and I also have an aircon in this room, which is working overtime to keep me cool. So there is quite a background hum in this room, and if I didn't have any noise cancellation on, then it would be quite noticeable. And in fact, I can show you how noticeable it is by just quickly going and deactivating my noise cancellation, and you tell me how you think it sounds. So I think that you can probably hear there is a background hum, maybe not too loud, but it's there nonetheless, and I think it would be a little bit annoying. So I'm going to just turn the noise cancellation back on again, and I'm going to run through basically the way that you use the application, and then we'll come back to that noise cancellation a little bit later. So as I say, it can grab on to any sort of audio input that you've got. And so those are listed up at the top here. We've got different either applications. So you can specify a particular application. So as I say, if you are doing watching a YouTube video and you wanted to perform some action on the audio, then you would need to select Safari if you're watching YouTube in Safari. There's also input devices. So again, I'm using my microphone, you could have a number of different microphones, those are all clusters input devices. And then there's also the overall system audio. So if you just wanted to capture absolutely everything that would say normally becoming out of your speakers from your computer, then that would be that one. You've also got the outputs. So after it's done the processing, where is it going to send the sound to? So it could be an output device such as a set of speakers, something like that. You can also send it to a recorder that audio hijack has built in. So that allows you to actually record any audio from your computer as well. And finally, we've got a couple of options here to actually broadcast. So either streaming to an online server or streaming to a dedicated streaming server. And by that, I mean audio streaming rather than live video streaming. So those are the sort of inputs and outputs. But in between there, there's a whole host of things that you can do with your audio signal. So if I scroll down here, there's a number of different effects. So we can change things like the, imagine a graphic equalizer, then it's got one of those. So you can change the levels of your audio. You can also change the balance between left and right and also simple things, you know, bass, treble and so on and so forth. And all the way down, you've got things like a low pass filter, high pass filter and so on. These are all things that I currently have handled with my short motive app. But if you haven't, then there was a great ways to adjust your mic levels that are coming in. And then we have some advanced options, which I'll come back to. And we've got some meters as well so that you can have a graphical view of the levels that you have coming from your different audio devices. And then there's some audio effects. So you can add delay to it. For example, that's one that's quite useful if you are recording, and you have a video feed coming in from one source and your audio is coming in for another. And then often there can be a slight delay between the audio and the video. So you can add a delay in manually using that feature. And then there's things like adjusting the pitch and so on. You want to give yourself a deeper voice, for example, or a really high voice, whichever you want. You can do that in here. And yet there are loads and loads of different options for very specific cases. I don't really use any of these. The one that I bought this app for was indeed that Denoise. And that comes in this little advanced section. There's Denoise there. Incidentally, they've also got some other ones in here, such as ducking. So that is where if you have, say, two people on a podcast, for example, and you want somebody to have the dominant signal, then it means that if that person speaks, then it will sort of dim or reduce the volume of the other people speaking. So there's things like that. And there's an input switch so you can switch between different inputs and various things like that. But what I'll do now is I'll just run through my actual sort of audio signal chain, if you like. It's quite simple and the app itself is quite simple to use because all you do is you just go down here and you just grab onto one of these things and drop it onto the screen. So I could drop that there. And then I just click in it. So that's selecting an application. So if I wanted to grab the audio from Safari, for example, I would just come there. And now I've set that up as a little audio source and then say I wanted to, I don't know, maybe the volume is too loud from coming out of, obviously, I'm making all of this up. There's plenty of other ways to do this. I'm just showing you how to build these building blocks up. So there we go. We want that volume one and I want to be able to reduce the volume in there. And then maybe we want that to go to a recorder because we just want to record the audio out of a video, for example. So then I would go down to my outputs, recorder on. So you can see how easy it is to just sort of build these things up just by dragging them onto the screen or right clicking and just deleting them. And then you also have the option to actually turn them on or off. So you could actually leave them on the screen, but turn them off. So that is how easy it is to actually build out these signal chains. Now, if I come back to mine for a moment, which is this one, this is my main one that I use. And you can, by the way, have different profiles in audio hijack. So that's quite good if you have different use cases, then you can set them up and you can just simply load those as and when you need them. Also, I should also point out if I just pull the bottom of the app up into view because it's slightly out of view there. There we go. So what you'll notice is there is this button at the bottom and this shows that this particular instance has been active for 52 minutes and it does actually have to be running in order for you to actually have your signal coming out. So when audio hijack is running, it is actually grabbing those audio sources and literally hijacking them. So, for example, if my audio, my MV7 is going in here, then it won't be going to anywhere else. So if I was to switch this off for a moment, then you'll stop hearing me for a moment. Jiton, then you should start to hear me again. So I hope you missed out a little bit of that. That was just to say that when you activate it, then that is, that's the only time that you're going to actually hear the output. So that is why it also featured on my checklist that I did, my Going Live checklist. I'll leave a link to that video down below as well, because that is one where I talk about all the things that I run through before I start one of these videos and also before I start a Zoom call as well because this is how I have my audio setup for my normal Zoom calls if I'm not going through Ecom Live, which I do as well sometimes. So that's going to be a video for another day as well. So when I get around to making my Ecom Live and Zoom video, then I should drop that into the link, into the description as well. But anyway, coming back to my signal chain. So we start with my Shure MB7 and then it goes into this D noise here. And if I just click onto here, you can see that basically I've got a couple of different functions. But if I switch it off, you should actually hear what my background noise is like. So I don't know if you can hear that. But that is my fan from my computer, which is whirring away as it's technically obsolete, it's eight years old, and it's running Ecom Live. So thanks to the Ecom developers for doing such a good job with that. But it is, as I say, the fans are running on it. And I also do have an air conditioning unit over to my right hand side that is keeping me cool. So lots of cooling going on in this room. And so, yeah, if I don't have the D noise on, then you can definitely hear that sort of hissing and humming in the background. So all I do is if I, when I've added this block in, you just simply switch it on and then you've got this learn noise. So it says inactive at the moment and it just sort of listens to the background noise for three seconds. And that's it. Hopefully the background noise just miraculously disappeared. So that is basically the sort of standout feature that I personally use it for. But obviously you can see that there are a whole host of other different effects and things you can add on to it. But that isn't quite all I use it for. It does have some other benefits that I use it for at the moment. So next, after it's gone through that D noise, it also goes into a set of meters. Now I always have this application open and I have it open where I can see it when I'm on my particular screen, where I have my Zoom or my Ecom Live. And so those meters, as long as those meters are just bouncing up and down. And you'll notice also that there is, if I mute my mic, these little yellow lines will disappear that are connecting it. So that shows that there is no signal going through it. So I know that it is working and my mic is on. And it is trying to suppress the background noise as long as I can see that this is active and this is on. So I keep that as a sort of visual cue that everything is running OK. This then feeds into a virtual device, which I have called Processed MV7. So that is when I go into my Zoom or Microsoft Teams or Skype or in Ecom Live, for example, where I've selected the audio input rather than selecting the shore MV7. I've selected my Processed MV7 because that signal has now been processed. I'll come back to this bottom section in a little moment. But I also have it going up to here, this set of menu meters. I've actually deactivated them from my menu at the moment. They are sitting down here, but normally they sit up in my menu. And so you can see these meters here. And that, again, is just a visual cue that there is sound. So even if I haven't got the app open at the front or I'm on a different screen, then I can still see that there is activity going on. So that is another little thing in the audio hijack. You've got some meters here in the meters section. So you can either add menu bar meters or you can add the peak RMS meters such as I've got here. Or I could add a different kind of set of meters, which is like this, which is similar sorts of thing, but just a different look to them, really. So yeah, I find these other ones easier to read and easier to see. So that's the ones that I have. So I can just delete that one again. And then finally, I have this going out to an MP3. So that means that I can also, if I want to, I can just record any audio. So it would record my audio, but it would also record anything else that is feeding into this this virtual device, this processed MV7. Now, what I also have is at the bottom, I have a couple of options here. So I've got the system audio, but then I've also got application audio. So that means that if I'm on a Microsoft Teams call or a Zoom call and I want to just quickly be able to add in the system audio, then I can just switch this one on like this. And it is now grabbing any audio from my system. And that is also feeding through into this virtual device. So although I've only got one device selected in my Zoom or whichever application I'm using, it will still have the audio from the system feeding into there as well. If I didn't want the whole system audio, but I wanted a specific application, say I wanted to play a YouTube video or something through into the meeting, then I could click on Safari here and switch on. So now I've got just a isolated application. And then this little switch allows me to just choose between the two. Do I want it to be the Safari, the block, or to be the system audio block? And then that then goes through a little volume control because sometimes if I'm sort of speaking over something, you might want something that is, you might want to reduce the volume of whatever is your playing. And so that allows me to do that. And then this then feeds through again, another one of these meters. It's not doing anything at the moment because there's nothing actually playing from either Safari or the system. But this set of meters is the same as that one. And again, it just allows me to hear, if or see at least the levels that this is coming through to the attendees on the meeting that I'm on or wherever I am rooting the audio to. Now I mentioned before that audio hijack, as I say, it does actually hijack the sound and take it over. And so as soon as I put this one on, then I don't get to hear the system audio the way that I normally would back through the system because it is taking control of it. So what I also have is I have this extra little sort of fork here off the path. And this is coming back out to my in-ear monitors basically. So the output device is set to my short MV7 because my MV7 has a headphone socket in it as well so that that plugs into my in-ear monitors. So that means that whatever I am playing through, I'm also hearing back as well. So that is how I am using Audio Hijack Pro. And I keep saying Audio Hijack Pro. It's not been called Audio Hijack Pro for, I think about five years, but I still keep calling it that. It's called Audio Hijack. And it's version number three actually. So Audio Hijack, I don't know how many times I've said that in this video but I apologize for the incorrect name. It's Audio Hijack. Now, there is another way that you can get audio into your Zoom calls. And especially if you're using Zoom with Ecamm Live, which I do, and for that we use the application Loopback. So I will be making another whole video specifically about Loopback and how I use that. But this is more just the way that I do it. Sometimes I just jump on a Zoom call quickly and I don't have Ecamm running or something like that. So I can just still use this and still have all the functionality of feeding the audio back from the system into the call as well. And by the way, why is this important? Well, as I say, it isn't actually something that if you have a mic selected and then you want to look at something whilst you're in Zoom and for everyone else to hear it, it doesn't automatically play through the system so that they can hear it. And the number of meetings that I've been on where somebody said, oh, I've just got something to play for you. And then they spend five or 10 minutes trying to figure out a way to do it. Sometimes joining the meeting remotely but from a mobile and holding the thing up to get the sound to come through, it doesn't certainly add to a productive meeting if you spend time doing things like that. So having something like this makes it a lot easier to be able to just simply come in here and switch on your audio and feed it into the meeting. Now, one thing I should point out though is the one thing that Audio Hijack cannot do is you cannot use it to actually create virtual devices. So I have actually had to create this virtual device, the processed MB7. I have had to create that myself using Loopback. So I've used the two programs together in that respect but so that's just something to bear in mind. If you have got a particular device that you want things to go to then it will show up in here. So if I go into my output devices, I have got a number of different things that I could send it to but as a default it, I've created this device rather in Loopback but that should all become a lot clearer once you watch the video that I'm about to make on Loopback but I will keep them separate because it is a separate application. Well, I hope you found that useful and if you did find it useful then please go ahead and like the video and also if you haven't already then subscribe and turn on notifications so that you get alerted whenever I make any new videos and speaking of new videos I've got plenty more coming right up next so check out one of these on the right hand side. Have a great day.